Wherein author Jeremy Robert Johnson (the guy behind Skullcrack City, Entropy in Bloom, and In the River) blogs primarily about his writing career and occasionally posts about things like hip hop, sharks, and experimental home surgery.

1/11/2006

Get Out of the House

Seriously.

Go. Make sure your clothes are weather-appropriate and get the hell out.

I did it, at around 2:30am, this Wednesday morning, and it was great. I'd spent five hours straight in my midget-box office, typing away at short stories, blogs, message boards, emails, etc. My wife is working out of town and the place was (and is) Capital L Lonely and feels quiet even with my computer pumping out tunes. The rain outside has been near torrential and has rendered my life into a series of boxes. Apartment to car to grocery store to fast food joint to Post Office to home, etc.

This place, my brain, the patterned but effective lifestyle- all gone stale. So I grabbed my keys and got out. But where to go?

Anywhere. Just walk. Just breathe. Pull some fresh air into your lungs.

I spent half an hour trolling the streets, in the rain. Gallivanting. Being a flaneur (I think that's the word). I saw one other human being. We nodded at each other and kept walking. TV's flashed through a lot of the windows. The only screen I caught was selling air filters with seven layers of protection.

Seven layers of protection. You know, for the boxes we live in.

The rain picked up its force. I started to soak and turned back towards my place. On the way back I stopped and touched the bark of a tree. What kind of tree, I don't know. I'd check Google but that seems so against the point. It was the kind of tree that was rough and thick and huge and will outlive me, and I could barely see the moon through its branches and the thickening clouds.

Before I reached home, I heard a noise. Like industrial bird song. Beautiful but metallic. As I got closer I realized it was water running and pressurizing through pipes on the outside of a building. I stood and listened to the song and its rusty melody and imagined a nice drumbeat boom-bapping under it.

The noise ceased as I walked away. Kind of perfect, this tiny performance.

And that kind of shit is happening everywhere, right now. It's not huge, but it's something different. It's something I can't fucking Google up.

My hair is still wet with the rain as I type this. I'm tempted to head back out. I didn't want to write this down, didn't want it to become part of the culture where an experience is only validated if you have fourteen forms of digital files notating its existence, blog included. But I've got a lot of love for the people who read this, and I'm telling you...

I live in Melbourne it was 43 degrees celsius here before we got some rain last night, if I ever get to choose I'd choose rain; it's easier to leave to house and it won't burn my face off (not just yet anyway).

Absolutely. I know the sun is the source of all life, but it is also a gigantic nuclear explosion in outer space (note: not a real science fact, just how I feel about it). The only time I'll tolerate heat and prolonged sun exposure is at Burning Man, or visiting relatives in Southern California.

But other than that, I'm much happier in places like Portland or Olympia, WA. My pasty Scottish roots have allowed me to be happy as a bog person.